Nominations process says a lot for the speed with which CSA want to act
It says a lot for the speed with which the Cricket South Africa Members Council and the Sports Minister want to have an interim board in place that Nathi Mthethwa will name the new temporary directors as early as midday on Friday.
But the haste has also upset several of CSA’s affiliates, who feel they have not had sufficient time to apply their minds properly and get the best candidates for the crucial positions. Controversy – never far from CSA – has also erupted with one of the three Members Council nominations, Xolani Peter Vonya, who resigned as Easterns president last weekend, apparently rejected by Minister Mthethwa because he is not considered independent enough.
Vonya is a hugely controvesial figure, who fought tooth and nail to stay on the Members Council, despite his own union casting a vote of no confidence in him, and his strongest supporters were fired CSA chief executive Thabang Moroe and current company secretary Welsh Gwaza, whose hold on power has raised serious concerns for many administrators.
The Members Council’s other two nominees were Andre Odendaal, the former Western Province and Cape Cobras CEO who has been a general Mr Fix-It for CSA, and Andile Dawn Mbatha, who is the chief financial officer of the Independent Electoral Commission but who has no cricket connections, judging by her social media posts, which are full of expensive cars, selfies and the occasional football reference. She is listed on the National Treasury’s e-tender website as being the recipient of a government tender.
Mthethwa wants the interim board to comprise nine people – three of them nominated by the Members Council, three by Sascoc and the South African Cricketers’ Association, and three by the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture.
CSA affiliates were apparently sent an e-mail after 9pm on Tuesday night asking for nominations for the interim board, but these had to be in by 11am on Wednesday morning, with full CVs provided. After an outcry from the unions, who complained that the sort of high-profile figures who should be nominated could not be expected to agree to be available and provide detailed CVs at such short notice, the deadline was extended to 11am on Thursday.
The names that the Members Council, which still comprises a healthy portion of the former Board, have provided do not fill one with huge confidence , but it is essential that quality administrators, strong on corporate governance and cricket knowledge, are appointed because they not only have to oversee the daily running of an organisation that is under immense pressure, but also the redrafting of the Memorandum of Incorporation to ensure the CSA Board is never again embroiled in the sort of regular scandals and mismanagement that have characterised them for the last few years.